From the article: "One would expect that the aims and agenda of such a huge organization would come under severe scrutiny, but Planned Parenthood has been immune from such questions, largely because its stated goals of population control and family planning are supposedly in agreement with America's interests at home and abroad. But is PPFA's stated agenda the whole story?"

Of course it's not. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood and eugenicist, was known to have said, "The most merciful thing a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.". Nice, eh? Here's more from Franz's article:

Sanger's involvement with eugenics was extensive. In her essay, "The Need of Birth Control in America," published in Birth Control: Facts and Responsibilities, Sanger defines "what we mean by birth control today: hygienic, scientific, and harmless control of procreative powers [italics hers]. Thus comprehended, birth control places in our hands the key to that greatest of all human problems -- how to reconcile individual freedom with the necessities of race hygiene.This was indeed the central dilemma for Sanger, and she solved it by determining who was and was not worthy of "individual freedom," in light of the race's needs. Contemporary family planning advocates, under the rallying cry of "choice," insist that they are only interested in the freedom part of the equation, but it seems the second factor weighs as heavily as ever, albeit under new names, such as the need to protect "society" or "the environment" or, more recently, "public genetic accountability."

Sanger is responsible for such reasoning. In Woman and the New Race, she argues that women incur a "debt to society" through their thoughtless reproducing, "unknowingly creating slums, filling asylums with the insane, and institutions with other defectives." Drawing on the pseudoscientific eugenic studies of her day, she compares "typical" small and large families in "The Need of Birth Control," concluding that the latter group "is correlated for the most part with poverty, distress, tuberculosis, delinquency, mental defect, and crime. Poverty and the large family generally go hand in hand," she concludes. "[T]his type is pari passu multiplying and perpetuating those direst evils which we must, if civilization is to survive, extirpate by the very roots.

The phrase "this type" shows the ideology at work. A large family is the sign of being unfit. In Sanger's world, the poor are poor because they are unfit, and they have large families because they are unfit. In the June 1917 issue of the Birth Control Review (which Sanger edited), she refers contemptuously to "the great horde of unwanted" that lacks the "courage to control its own destiny." The real problem, she notes in The Pivot of Civilization, arises when "the incurably defective are permitted to procreate and thus increase their numbers." At this point the state should interfere "either by force or persuasion."

Enter Planned Parenthood, now a government-subsidized birth control dispensary and abortion clinic. Sure, its tried to put space between themselves and the diabolical beliefs of its founder, but just a few minutes at their Website tells me that nothing has changed. The emphasis is on body image, sexuality and how to end a pregnancy which is described as a disease, a burden, or as President Barack Obama has said, a punishment, rather than on the dignity of the human being, and on the natural result of a loving relationship between a man and a woman.

See, ladies, you're nothing more than a walking sex object, and you should hate yourself for your reproductive capabilities. Your looks and your sexuality are so much more important than your biology, which gets in the way of having the productive life that PPFA wants you to have, which obviously revolves around body image and sexuality. If you don't reproduce, all the better, and if you're one of the smart people, than you will believe this.

...and PPFA can quite effectively distance themselves from Sanger's and her eugenicist colleagues' shtick, because Americans already buy the lie...the names are now irrelevant.

(Please not that I have not provided a link to PPFA's website. If you want to see it, Google it, as I do not want my site showing up as a link to theirs.)

Thursday, October 28, 2010

We as Catholics must vote according to our faith, and according to our consciences. We need to know our candidates for public office, but commercials tell us nothing, and candidate websites tell us less. How can we know who stands for what this election?

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

"Why do you Catholics focus on the cross so much?" YOU CATHOLICS. Nothing makes me bristle more than a heartily declared YOU CATHOLICS. "You'll notice," my "friend" continued with her blindsiding discourse accompanied by her haughtily pointing at the walls of her living room, "that there isn't a single crucifix in my house. See, we don’t really need to focus on Jesus’ death so much. We Protestants realize that we are really sharing in the resurrection. So why do you Catholics always focus on death?"

I knew it was coming sooner or later. Because I'm so outwardly Catholic, whenever I reach out and make new friends, specifically with protestants, the topic of religion eventually comes up, and it always comes up the same way: a glorious picture of protestant sensibility starkly contrasting the depressing blood and suffering to which we as Catholics so foolishly cling, sometimes followed by a “YOU CATHOLICS" statement depending upon how bold my "friend" happens to be.

This friend was pretty bold. I really wasn’t surprised that it was coming, though, as she had repeatedly insulted my faith in a number of conversations prior to this, the last real conversation we would ever have. After the hair on the back of my neck settled back down, I managed to give her an answer.

"We focus on the cross,” I replied, “because it's by his cross that we are saved. It was because of his sacrifice, through his suffering and his death that we achieve resurrection with Him. But without his death, without that sacrifice, there would be no resurrection.”

How do you know when someone really loves you? Let's turn to the Gospel to answer this question: “This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do the things that I command you.” Jn 15:12-14
To lay down his life for his friends.

It's by their sacrifice that we know someone really loves us. This is what Jesus said, then it's what he did by his death on a cross.

We Catholics, in our reverence for the crucifix, in our focus on Christ's suffering and death, are entering into the most incredible love that anyone could possibly experience. Michael Pakaluk wrote in his article, “Avoiding the Crucifix” first published in Crisis Magazine’s December 1990 issue:

"According to tradition St. Thomas Aquinas once asked St. Bonaventure how he had acquired the deep theological wisdom he displayed in his writings. St. Bonaventure pointed to a crucifix and said that he had learned all he knew from contemplating it."

There are I think a dozen crucifixes hanging on the walls of our home. Quite a few of them were there before I married my husband. We’ll never take them down, except maybe to dust them, or paint the wall behind them. I look at the image of my Lord nailed to the cross, blood rivering down his arms and his side, and I enter into prayer, even if just for a moment as I’m walking by. Those crucifixes are much-needed reminders for when the world becomes hopeless, when work gets unbearable, when we're caught up in distractions and problems, of what's really important in this life, and in the next.

We can hope for ourselves when we encounter the beaten, brutalized body of Jesus, ruthlessly executed through the violence of crucifixion. Not just His physical suffering as he was scourged, crowned with thorns and forced to carry his cross to his death; but the isolation at being utterly rejected by His people; by the humiliation of being spat upon, of falling, being stripped and nailed to a cross, meant to be left for wild animals to devour. Crucifixion is a punishment meant to utterly dehumanize. He took all of the sins that we lash out into the world upon himself, and when he laid down His own life for our sakes, he took all of that sin and let it die with Him. It's from this horrible suffering and death that Jesus rose, conquering sin and death, and He lives.

If I am unwilling to contemplate His death, how can I really comprehend the glory of His Resurrection? How can I understand what He meant when he said to love one another? How can I call myself a disciple if I am not kneeling at the foot of the Cross, the single place where I learn what it means to lay down my life as Christ commands?

More from Michael Pakaluk’s article:

"Perhaps having supposed that the elimination of suffering is the aim of life and of morality, we are confused by the suggestion that Christ desires to suffer, that His purpose in life was to die for us. That Jesus loves us is a consoling thought, but that He loves us that much disturbs as well as consoles. A God Who gives that much might in fact ask that much."

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Every day in my Inbox I receive daily meditations from Opus Dei--meditations written by St. Josemaría Escrivá, Opus Dei's founder. Today's was particularly inspirational:

Following the Master's wishes, you are to be salt and light while being fully immersed in this world we were made to live in, sharing in all human activities. Light illumines the hearts and minds of men. Salt gives flavor and preserves from corruption. That is why if you lack apostolic zeal you will become insipid and useless. You will be letting other people down and your life will be absurd. (The Forge, 22)

God did not create us to build a lasting city here on earth, because ‘this world is the way to that other, a dwelling place free from care’. Nevertheless, we children of God ought not to remain aloof from earthly endeavors, for God has placed us here to sanctify them and make them fruitful with our blessed faith, which alone is capable of bringing true peace and joy to all men wherever they may be. Since 1928 I have constantly preached that we urgently need to christianize society. We must imbue all levels of mankind with a supernatural outlook, and each of us must strive to raise his daily duties, his job or profession, to the order of supernatural grace. In this way all human occupations will be lit up by a new hope that transcends time and the inherent transience of earthly realities. (Friends of God, 210)

Monday, October 18, 2010

From the America Needs Fatima Blog: October 16, 2010, America Needs Fatima’s (ANF) successfully carried out 5,963 Rosary rallies all over America including far-off Alaska, Hawaii and Guam, and in some other countries.

Thanks to the zealous efforts of rosary captains around the nation, thousands of faithful Catholics armed with their rosaries and banners trooped to the public square to pray for America’s conversion and heed the message of Our Lady of Fatima. (photo:Rally in New York City courtesy of America Needs Fatima Blog)

Msgr. Cariglio, Poland Twp., OH

Here in the Mahoning Valley, over 100 Catholics of all ages gathered at 3 different sites to pray for our nation. America today is under the grave influence of a secular idealism that would kick God and His law to the curb. Said Msgr. Michael Cariglio of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish in Youngstown, OH, who led the Rally in Poland Twp., OH: "We gather today to pray for our country, to make a stand against the darkness that plagues our nation." It's the same darkness that was tearing Portugal apart during the early 1900s.

Our Lady of Fatima told the three children to whom she appeared in 1917 that the Rosary is the solution to the many problems that not only faced their society, but that faced all the nations of the world, and promised: "My Immaculate Heart Will Triumph."

We believe her promise even today. At the Poland Twp. Rally, Msgr. Cariglio led a small but diverse group of faithful Catholics in the Luminous Mysteries, that the light of the Gospel would inspire our leaders. We sang, we prayed, and we consecrated ourselves to the Queen of Heaven. Many of us were strangers; yet there was a profound spirit of Christian love and unity among all of us, and we left united under Our Lady's mantle. It was an experience that I will not soon forget.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

I just finished taking a 15 question quiz at The Pew Forum, where those infamous test scores embarrassed the Christian world by their lack of basic knowledge.

I gotta admit, I have mixed feelings about the results. I got a 93%, 14 out of 15. (Yea, I don't know what the heck "The First Great Awakening" is.) I'm glad I did quite well--I outperformed 97% of the tested sample. I'm not impressed with myself because the questions were very elementary. I'm discouraged because this means that on average, many Americans, regardless what they believe, don't know basic facts about religion. I'm not that discouraged, because the questions were so general they don't really indicate anything, other than maybe people don't know much about religions other than their own.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Bloodmoney is out! This is a sure film to put on your must see list. At the end of the film, my husband and I were still watching the screen as the credits rolled up. This film will leave you invigorated to do more to stop the evil of abortion. It will leave you wondering how abortion is legal in this country as it discusses the flawed rulings of Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton. It dispels the myths and shows how abortion always hurts women, is never a viable "choice", and undercovers the disturbing logic of how abortionist scheme to get more women to abort. You will see women talk about their tragic decisions to abort and the aftermath and women who were encouraged to abort but chose life. With names like Father Pavone, Father Euteneuer, Norma McCorvey, Flip Benham, Troy Newman, Georgette Forney, Sandra Cano, Dr Nathanson, and Alveeda King you know that the film is a sure win. Wake up America! You can order it here....www.bloodmoneyfilm.com

Thursday, October 14, 2010

I snuck into their secret clubhouse while they were out terrorizing the neighborhood and discovered that they're holding out on American women. For years abortion rights advocates have been denying that the rise in breast cancer is actually linked to birth control & abortion. I'd read about this link in Fatherless by Brian Gail, and a woman I met on Respect Life Sunday gave me some pretty horrible statistics about it as well.

There are so many articles, studies and abstracts about the link between breast cancer and abortion it's mind-boggling. I have no doubt that those who advocate abortion rights for women are card-carrying members of the Women Haters Club. Here is some of what I've read:

New Study Pinpoints Oral Contraceptive-Breast Cancer Link (OCBC link); Resurrects Abortion-Breast Cancer Link (ABC link) By Joel Brind, Ph.D. "The real dramatic new finding was a strong association between TNBC [an aggressive, treatment-resistant strain of cancer] and OC (oral contraceptives) use; particularly among those whose first OC use was under age 18: odds ratio (OR) = 3.7, and those who had gone between 1 and 5 years since last use: OR = 4.2. (OR is a measure of relative risk. Hence, OR = 4.2 means a 320% risk increase over those who never used OCs). Importantly, this strong association with OC use did not appear for non-TNBC cancers, which were very weakly related (20% - 30% risk increase) to OC use."

The Breast Cancer Epidemic: Modeling and Forecasts Based on Abortion and Other Risk Factors by Patrick S. Carroll, M.A.: "Using national cancer registration data for female breast cancer incidence in eight European countries...for which there is also comprehensive data on abortion incidence, trends are examined and future trends predicted...induced abortion is found to be the best predictor." The conclusion: "The increase in breast cancer incidence appears to be best explained by an increase in abortion rates, especially nulliparous abortions, and lower fertility."

Abortion Boosts Breast Cancer Risk 193% Study Finds, Giving Birth Lowers It by Steven Ertelt: "Researchers in Iran have published the results of a new study showing women who have an abortion face a 193% increased risk of breast cancer. On the other hand, women who carry a pregnancy to term find a lowered breast cancer risk compared with women who have never been pregnant. The study folllows on the heels of new reports indicating Komen for the Cure gave $7.5 million to the Planned Parenthood abortion business in 2009. The findings were reported in the April 3, 2010 issue of Medical Oncology but are coming to the public's attention only now.

Komen for the Cure Donated $7.5M to Planned Parenthood Abortion Biz in 2009 by Steven Ertelt: The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation has long denied that abortion plays any role in elevating the risk for women of contracting the deadly disease. That's despite a wealth of research over decades showing an average increased risk of about 40 percent for women having abortions compared to those who carry their pregnancy to term.

Pray in reparation for the injuries to and deaths of women because of Abortion and Birth Control.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

I have three email accounts and all three are a junk mail nightmare. I know why, too. I shop online, I read books and periodicals online, I watch television and movies online, I pay bills online, I blog, etc. All that exposure to the World Wide Web, you're bound to get some unsolicited emails.

Like the one I got this morning from a group called Catholics For Equality.

The bad feeling welled up about 2 seconds after the site loaded. It wasn't so much their agenda as the manner in which they twist Catholic teaching to mislead the public and advance their agenda that made my stomach churn. Here's an example. They list on their Website five "freedoms" to which the LGBT community is entitled: to work, to serve, to become American, to create family, and to marry. They provide a number of quotations to support their overall position.

The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition. (CCC, 2358)

It's no wonder recent polls show that a large number of Catholics support gay marriage. If this is what groups such as this tell Catholics that the Church teaches about homosexuality, then really, why is gay marriage such a big deal?

The problem is that they don't provide the entire teaching. In the Catechism, here's what appears before the aforementioned quotation:

Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. (CCC, 2357)

...and here's what appears after:

Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection. (CCC, 2259)

All of this appears in a larger section under a heading titled "The Vocation To Chastity". (Funny, Catholics for Equality used "The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Article 6, The Sixth Commandment" as their little byline, but conveniently left off this heading, as well as the subheading "Chastity and Homosexuality") This entire section of the Catechism on the virtue chastity teaches about human integrity, self-mastery and the dignity with which all humans are created equally. So is it equality that Catholics For Equality is after; or is this group really trying to get some kind of preferential treatment?

Consider that of the five "freedoms" they've listed, two are diametrically opposed to the complete Catholic teaching on homosexuality. As Catholics, if we find ourselves in disagreement with the Church's teaching (which is the truth of Christ, by the way), then we prayerfully consider where we are going wrong by examining Her teachings and honestly looking at ourselves in Her light. We do not simply omit that which we find inconvenient. Truth is eternal and not subject to public opinion, and a lie of omission is a lie nonetheless.

The following video expresses the very heart of why Catholics really need to start earnestly learning their faith--NOW.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Rather than contribute to the spread of No Pressure, a pretty horrifying short film produced by a group of climate change activists kicking off a carbon footprint reduction campaign today, I posted Friday's Catholic News Roundup from RealCatholicTV.com instead.

RealCatholicTV.com has the decency to cut the rest of the scene, which is of the two children deciding not to do anything about climate change literally exploding. (The producers of No Pressure billed their little project as "comical", by the way.)

From the embedded video: "Some have actually chosen to defend the offensive presentations, perhaps revealing the dark underbelly of a movement bent on global political change, and controlling individuals who disagree at any cost."

It's a giant granite monument in Elbert County, Georgia, inscribed with 10 principles for humanity. The first principle: "Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature." Very scary, since the global population is nearly 15 times this number, and the people behind building it remain a complete mystery.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

The south of France in the 12th century found itself in religious conflict with the rise of a new religion called Albigensianism. When the Church failed at overcoming this new philosophy through the exercise of ecclesiastical authority or forcible repression, St. Dominic in 1208 turned to Our Lady in prayer. She told him the following:

"Wonder not that you have obtained so little fruit by your labors, you have spent them on barren soil, not yet watered with the dew of Divine grace. When God willed to renew the face of the earth, He began by sending down on it the fertilizing rain of the Angelic Salutation. Therefore preach my Psalter composed of 150 Angelic Salutations and 15 Our Fathers, and you will obtain an abundant harvest." (from The history of St. Dominic, founder of the Friars Preachers by Augusta Theodosia Drane)

As devotion to the Rosary through St. Dominic's extraordinary efforts spread, Albigensianism faded throughout the region.

What is Albigensianism? Like so many "new" religions that come onto the scene throughout history, Albigensianism is actually rooted in a much older (3rd Century) Persian religion called Manichæism, which is "purported to be the true synthesis of all the religious systems then known, and actually consisted of Zoroastrian Dualism, Babylonian folklore, Buddhist ethics, and some small and superficial, additions of Christian elements.(www.newadvent.org.)"

Take a look at some key Manichæan principles:

The co-existence of two mutually opposed forces: "good", the source of the spiritual; and "evil", the source of the physical. Because the physical is innately evil, the body is evil, all of creation is a prison and liberation of the spirit, which is divine, comes with death.

Because a "good" god could not come to earth in a body else be imprisoned himself by evil, he created Jesus Christ, whose teachings were redemptive, not his suffering and death. The Holy Spirit is also a creature.

Man is a living contradiction, thus liberating the spirit from the body is a righteous end to life. Both marriage and procreation are abhorred and believers discouraged from marrying and having children, because this world is a punishment, and freedom from this world returns humanity to his divine nature.

There are two classes: perfect and hearer. The perfect, possessing all knowledge essential to achieve divinity, were bound by every "moral law", whereas the hearer could pick and choose until ready to undergo initiation, at which time they must either bind themselves to the moral law or die. (Death bead initiations among Albigensian "believers", the Manichæan "hearer" equivalent, very common, as was suicide by starvation or assisted with poison.)

A casual observer can easily see how these ancient, erroneous principles have taken root today. Environmentalism, the New Age, secular humanism and various other contemporary philosophies share in the idealism behind these same principles. The specifics may be different, but the foundation is the same.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Each year, US justices, government officials and legal professionals are welcomed to pray for the upcoming year at the annual Red Mass, celebrated this past Sunday at St. Matthew the Apostle Cathedral in Washington, DC. Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia's sermon summarized the over-700-year history of the Red Mass throughout Europe and America, discussed divine law as our legal system's true foundation, and, using the Golden Sequence of Pentecost as his anchor, invoked the Holy Spirit to guide our nation's courts and the legal profession this year.

This excerpt of his sermon really caught my attention:

The words of the prophet Ezekiel recall another important element in our invocation of the Holy Spirit today. “I will put my Spirit within you,” he says, “and make you live by my statutes, careful to observe my decrees.” Positive law rests on certain principles the knowledge of which constitutes nothing less than a participation in the divine law itself: the pursuit of the common good through respect for the natural law, the dignity of the human person, the inviolability of innocent life from conception to natural death, the sanctity of marriage, justice for the poor, protection of minors, and so on. The legal profession is entrusted with the discernment and administration of justice and the rule of law according to an objective measure—in effect, according to principles—not of our own making.

This is the kind of preaching Catholics need to hear. The most volatile and controversial issues of the day, because they directly involve the sanctity of human life, are not subject to relative ideals, and neither is the law. Take a few minutes and read his whole sermon.

All day I've been thinking about this, particularly after reading some of the media "coverage" of Sunday's Red Mass. I of course expected to read little about the Mass itself, or about what Archbishop Di Noia preached. I read much more about separation of Church and State, religious apathy, opinions about the Church, etc. No, the secular media has not surprised me.

Washington archdiocese spokeswoman Susan Gibbs, however, did. The Archbishop stated the following near the end of his sermon: "That innocent human life is now so broadly under threat has seemed to many of us one of the signs of this growing peril." Susan's comment to Tony Mauro at Legal Times (read his entire blog post here)? "Di Noia told her this reference to "innocent life" was not an allusion to abortion."

We resolve that we will advance the cause
of righteous candidates for public office,

And that we will be more afraid of offending you by our silence

Than of offending the IRS by our speech.

We resolve that we will declare boldly to our people

that no public official who fails to respect the life of a little baby

can be trusted to respect our lives.

Father, today we rejoice, because

we are not simply working for victory - we are working from victory.

The victory of life, truth, and grace has been won

by your Son's death and Resurrection.

Today we hear his voice again.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.

I hold the keys of death and of hell.

Behold, I make all things new."

Father, we rejoice that we have been made new,

And as we work to renew our culture

We look forward to the great day of his coming,

When every eye will see him, even of those who pierced him,

And every knee shall bend,

and every tongue confess, to the glory of God the Father,

JESUS CHRIST IS LORD!

In his Blessed Name we pray. Amen!

The former site of the Mahoning Women's Center, the last abortion mill in our diocese, now closed--a direct result of the building's purchase this past spring by Mahoning Valley Health, a PRO LIFE group dedicated to upholding the sanctity of every human life from conception to natural death.

Obstructed view from inside the clinic.Lord, remove all that obstructs our visionthat we may know Your truth.

All photos from the Life Chain that gathered on Market Street in Youngstown, OH.